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OXFORD — It's the smell -
pungent and slightly citrusy- that first greets visitors to Mahmoud
ElSohly's office on the University of Mississippi campus.

Next are pictures lining the hallways of the bright green plants
ElSohly has researched for 35 years as chief cultivator in the nation's
only legal marijuana farm.

The University of Mississippi Marijuana Project provides marijuana by
the bale to licensed researchers throughout the nation. They study the
drug through a federal contract with the National Institute on Drug
Abuse.

Marijuana is grown in a field, nurtured in an artificially lit "grow
room," analyzed in labs and stored in drums in two bank-style vaults.

"It's a complicated plant," ElSohly said.

It's complicated not only in its chemical composition but also because
of the political and cultural baggage it carries.

Around the nation, policy makers are struggling with legalizing the
drug for people who need its medical benefits while lobbyists push for
even greater legalization.

"It's a very controversial issue and a very emotional issue," he said.
"This is an illegal drug, a controlled substance. If this was milk
thistle or any of these other herbal drugs, it would be no problem
making this available or an extract available."

Although he says he never has smoked it, ElSohly is a marijuana fan. He
is an informed believer in the medical properties of THC, the chemical
in the plant that produces a psychoactive "high" but also is being used
to give relief to people with chronic ailments such as cancer or
Parkinson's disease.

Marijuana, he says, is a true wonder weed that, broken down into its
chemical components, can be used for both constipation and diarrhea, he
said. ElSohly and his colleagues have spent years studying and
isolating the plant's medical effects.

The federal contract pays the university about $480,000 during growing
years - less on off years - to provide the cannabis to researchers. Ole
Miss has been involved in marijuana research since 1968 and the NIDA
contract dates to the mid-1970s.

Federal demand for the plant waxes and wanes, ElSohly said.

But Ole Miss' contract to grow marijuana rankles some who see it as an
unfair monopoly.

One reason some question the approach at Ole Miss is because the
project has a fundamental objection to smoking the plant, in part
because of the nature of the university's longstanding federal
contract. But ElSohly, a research pharmacist, thinks it is just a bad
way to take medicine.

Through years of research, ElSohly and other scientists have discovered
more than 500 chemical compounds in marijuana, many of which he said
can take on unpredictable characteristics when heated up several
hundred degrees.

"Smoking produces thousands of chemicals that get into the lungs," he
said. "If the drug is to be used in any way, smoking is not the right
way."

ElSohly is working on non-smoking methods to ingest the drug, ways that
separate the medical benefits from the psychoactive high. So far, the
suppository method he has promoted has proven unpopular, but he is
working on a patch placed on a patient's gum line that delivers a mild,
time-released dose of THC that he says gives the patient medical
benefits without getting high.

Nadelmann said such research has value, but he said scientific studies
indicate that the marijuana high is part of the reason it is effective.
For that and other reasons, Nadelmann and other supporters of medical
marijuana are pushing for legal consumption of the whole plant,
something he said has broad-based support.

"If we were able to hold a ballot initiative in all 50 states, I think
we would win in all but a handful," he said.

Fourteen states allow some form of legal medical marijuana and
advocates are pushing hard in others.

Iowa state Sen. Joe Bolkcom, a Democrat, said he thinks voters are
ahead of policymakers when it comes to legalizing medical pot. Bolkcom
sponsored a medical marijuana bill in the Iowa House that he
acknowledges will not pass this year. But he said it will pass as soon
as lawmakers figure out "the Iowa approach" to the problem.

"There still is some concern about making sure there is sufficient
control in the system so that people who are chronically ill and in
pain have access to this medicine, and it simply isn't an avenue for
legalization for recreational use," he said.

Maryland Delegate Dan Morhaim, a Democrat, and Republican state Sen.
David Brinkley have introduced bills in the General Assembly to allow
medical marijuana use by people with serious illnesses. They say they
have broad support.

Morhaim, a physician, said the bill will tightly regulate the
dispensing of the drug through state-certified facilities instead of a
grow-your-own approach adopted in other states.

Morhaim said ElSohly's work on nonsmokable medicinal marijuana is
worthwhile, but it is not the only answer and is not available now.

"This is about compassionate care," he said. "There is no reason to be
so marijuana-phobic as we have been in this country."

Quote:thegoodguy1 said:Hell yea, I've known about this pot farm for awhile now. Heavily guarded and they aren't scared to shoot. But i'll be damned if i wouldn't snatch a few ounces if i worked there!!!

i go to ole miss and you can see the green houses from the road by the intramural fields- fucking trees with buds the size of my forearm... i'd like to think they'd be reluctant to shoot you, but this is mississippi lol. either way- that's a persistent rumor on campus (that they'll fucking shoot you haha) and whether it's true or not, something is working- because i've never heard of anyone even attempting to get any.

Quote:thegoodguy1 said:Hell yea, I've known about this pot farm for awhile now. Heavily guarded and they aren't scared to shoot. But i'll be damned if i wouldn't snatch a few ounces if i worked there!!!

i go to ole miss and you can see the green houses from the road by the intramural fields- fucking trees with buds the size of my forearm... i'd like to think they'd be reluctant to shoot you, but this is mississippi lol. either way- that's a persistent rumor on campus (that they'll fucking shoot you haha) and whether it's true or not, something is working- because i've never heard of anyone even attempting to get any.

No of course it isn't shwag.. I mean come on this is no ordinary pot farm. They've got the best technology, equipment, and services to produce some "extra"ordinary bud. Haven't you ever heard of G-13? Let me refresh your memory. Remember "American Pie"? The movie about the middle-aged guy living the American dream who has a college-aged neighbor that gets the best shit ever grown, EVER?? Well that kid goes to Ole Miss....